Seven US soldiers killed in Iraq Sunday, 15 since Friday

DEBKAfile Intelligence

May 21, 2007

Six troops and an Iraqi translator were killed by a roadside bomb in W. Baghdad, a seventh in Diwaniya when their vehicle was hit by a bomb blast. The US military death toll in May has risen to 76. Top US Iraq Gen. David Petraeus believes at least two of three soldiers kidnapped by al Qaeda last Sat. May 12, are alive. They were abducted in an attack which left four US soldiers and an Iraqi dead.

The search parties detained 9 people in a raid Saturday in Amiriyah, a Sunni insurgent center west of Baghdad. Another two people were arrested as associates of the al Qaeda command network in Baqouba, capital of the northeaster Diyala province.